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. . . . 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 pushing a false narrative.”

Democrat Gallego leads her by 6.4 points, per the RealClearPolitics polling average, whereas most polls show Trump winning the state.

Still, both contests are considered highly competitive, with Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris visiting the Grand Canyon State in recent days.

Lake and Gallego faced off last week in a debate, which the Republican said was a “decisive victory” for her. (Gallego tweeted it revealed “Kari will continue to divide our communities and spread dangerous lies just to gain power.”)

“I wish we would’ve had two hours, to be honest. There’s a lot we could talk about,” Lake said about the hour-long debate, adding she thinks the moderators were “fair.”

Lake said she wishes it had focused more on the economy and foreign policy. Both candidates were asked about Trump’s tax cuts that are set to expire in 2025. The Republican said she would vote to continue the cuts, and Gallego, who voted against them in 2017, said he wants to “keep the middle class portion” and add a child tax credit.

“The economy’s terrible. People can’t afford anything. And so they’re gonna try to put out numbers and gaslight people that the economy’s good, the border’s fine. The truth of the matter is none of it’s fine. It’s all going in the wrong direction,” Lake told The Post.