This means the winner of the popularity contest. There are lots of sayings using "top" in English meaning, the best, the winner etc. He is on top of his game (meaning he is playing very well). This band is at the top of the charts (meaning they are selling a lot of albums). Hope that helps.

Strictly speaking, it is wrong. It doesn't make sense. However, the intended meaning is easily understood so it's acceptable for conversation. To fix it, you could say something like "the protest vote landed me atop the popularity contest"

protests suddenly raised her to the winning the contest not step but step but immediately, "out of the blue sky"