Using "a lot" or "very much" to answer "how popular is something?" [closed]
No. Even accounting for answer ellipsis (see the Wikipedia article) (where you don’t feed back the understood parts of the question), the adjective popular would need a suitable adverb.
Q: How popular is he?
A: [He is] very [popular]. = Very.
Incorrect A: *[He is] a lot [popular]. = A lot.
Incorrect A: *[He is] very much [popular]. = Very much.