Exclusive | Early-balloting skeptic Kari Lake explains the turnaround that led to her Early Voting Bus Tour

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.— Arizona’s Republican Senate nominee, Kari Lake, voted early this election — after repeatedly denouncing the option just a couple years ago.

“We just can’t wait until the end, and we have to bank the vote,” the former TV-news anchor explained, talking to The Post on her campaign bus.Her early vote last week is part of the Arizona GOP’s larger effort to encourage election skeptics to make it to the polls.Lake, who’s been a staunch critic of election administration in Arizona and contested her 2022 gubernatorial loss in court, has been one of those skeptics.

“Going back to when I first started voting back in the ’80s, we had Election Day.Our Constitution says Election Day,” she said in October 2022.

“It doesn’t say election season, election month..

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And the longer you drag that out, the more fraught with problems there are.”Now she’s promoting election season, even turning her “#MakeArizonaGrandAgain Bus Tour into an Early Voting Bus Tour.”She said she’s also encouraging people to vote early as the ballot is four pages long.“If you have a mail-in ballot, sit down, pull that thing out of the mailbox, sit down, fill it out, and get it turned back in.I suggest you bring it to a voting center, or you bring it to a drop box — as much as I hate those because I don’t want things to get lost to the USPS,” she told The Post.In the home stretch of her campaign, she’s not letting public polling data showing her underperforming Donald Trump in her race against Rep.

Ruben Gallego get her down.“The media is pushing this false narrative that ‘Oh, there’s a Trump-Gallego vote.’ There’s not, our polling data doesn’t show that.Our polling shows us doing really well,” Lake said.“We’re really aligned with President Trump,” she insisted.

“I think I’m down a little bit from President Trump’s support.One or 2 points is all, and we’re feeling very strong going into this, but the media’s p...