When you saw them looking at her after the show it was the drunken silly side they seemed to focus on. Like she was a mix between Kate when drunk and Jade's intelligence. There has been no indication of the bitchy or sheep-like side which was also evident while she was in the house.

Another factor that the focus has been on has been the split from Kris. Kris obviously isn't generally that liked. Sophie did like Kris in the house but from when she saw the magazines and the outside view of him (including her family's obvious antagonism) she suddenly changed and made that DR speech, which seemed quite calculated and maybe not even that convincing. Without that outside interference I wonder if she would have made that about-turn quite so easily.

Other factors such as the removal of popular HMs like Freddie and Marcus probably helped her, as did Siavash continuing to shoot himself in the foot for the final few weeks. With those left in the final maybe it was partly about votes to stop Charlie or Siavash winning for some of the voters (David came surprisingly high in the final vote). She did get a large percentage of the final vote but was she really as popular as that suggested?