Ah, anywhere between 40% and 50% is less than 1/2 of the voters.
As I stated in the post you referenced - between then the two runner up conservatives got more votes than Tillis.
So even though Tillis “wins” the primary he did it with less than 50%. That means over 50% of the voters voted against him.
Like I said if the conservatives got behind one guy they would win every time. But they keep splitting their votes allowing the GOP-e guy to float to the top every time.