(CNN) An emerging great challenge in the coverage of politics is finding voters -- real voters, preferably undecided ones -- who will talk.
Hopefully CNN's Maeve Reston doesn't mind me sharing her secret to finding undecided voters -- the kind of people who don't pay attention every day but vote and swing elections.
It's the Costco parking lot.
There's a captive audience trying to cram things into their trunks. She needs the extra time to convince people to talk to her because, as any journalist covering politics will confirm, it's getting more and more difficult to get regular people to speak on the record.
Reston is based in Los Angeles, but she reports from battleground states like Arizona and Nevada.
In an election that's more about the price of eggs than the future of democracy, she's written about a potential shift in how women are voting. And depending on what happens next Tuesday, she sees some evidence that Republicans are learning an important lesson about women voters.
Our conversation, conducted by phone, is below:
WOLF: I think a lot of DC-based journalists can't help but view this election as a sort of post-insurrection referendum on democracy. But it's becoming clear that a lot of voters don't see it that way. What are you seeing traveling around the country?
RESTON: I like to spend a lot of time in grocery store parking lots and gas stations. It's remarkable that when you ask people what their top issues are in this election, that almost never comes up. It comes up as an issue that is No. 4, No. 5 down the list, but usually I have to ask about it for people to start talking about that.
I think that's partly because we're out talking to voters who are still undecided. The people that really care most passionately about that issue have already made up their minds. Certainly it is a concern out there, especially among independents and moderate voters in Arizona. But more often it comes up in relation to specific candidates like Kari Lake.
I was out in the Loop 101, which are those suburbs that ring Phoenix, and when I would ask voters about Kari Lake, they would say things like, "I'm just so tired of hearing about the 2020 election. Enough already." That's often the context in which it comes up.
(Read Reston's report from outside Phoenix in October: "Trump's Arizona slate risks turning off independent-minded voters in key Senate and governor's races.")
RESTON: I often say to myself that it feels like this is just going to end up being the butter and eggs election, where what is most top of mind for people is that anger that they're feeling about inflation. And that is what comes up over and over again in every single interview -- that frustration and the feeling that people in Washington can't do anything about it.
RELATED: High inflation hardens some midterm election voters' party preferences
WOLF: At the same time, there's a lot of election denialism on the ballot in Arizona, in particular with Lake, who is unapologetic. There's the Republican candidate for secretary of state there who says he would completely change the way voting occurs in the state. There are examples arguably of voter intimidation with people standing guard near drop boxes. What is the undercurrent in Arizona that's feeding the election denialism?
RESTON: It is most overt in Arizona among those voters who intend to back a full slate of election deniers. Those voters, when you talk to them, absolutely embrace (former President Donald) Trump's lies about the 2020 election, and they have supported people like Kari Lake because she has continued to carry that message into the election.
Among that group of MAGA voters, they have totally bought in. The people that we're seeing watching the ballot boxes, they think they're trying to save democracy because they've bought into all of these conspiracy theories. That group believes it fervently, and when you have a back-and-forth with them, they're just not going to change their minds.
WOLF: You wrote last week about how some women voters could be veering toward the Republicans this year. You've written stories about women being the key to these elections for multiple election cycles. Why are women so key as a voting bloc, and what's different this year?
RESTON: We have the perpetual female swing voters in the Philly suburbs or the suburbs around Denver, and we always go back and write these stories. But this time there are so many undecided older women voters. That's a trend that we've been seeing pop up in the polling.
And I think that it surprised a lot of people because generally older voters tend to make up their minds ahead of time. What that's about, I think, is that there are so many crosscurrents in this election that have left many female voters feeling conflicted:
There are a lot of voters that are struggling with which direction to go because they feel pulled in those different directions and that has ended with a group of female voters who might be very pivotal next week.
(Read Reston's report: "Women powered a blue wave in 2018. Now the tables appear to have turned.")
WOLF: CNN released a new poll on Wednesday morning. It kind of surprised me, given how much Democrats have focused on abortion as an issue and how important it seemed in Kansas and some special elections that abortion rights weren't more of a driving factor sending people to the polls. Did something happen over the summer that made abortion rights less important after the end of Roe v. Wade, or was the importance of the issue overinflated?
RESTON: I don't think it was overinflated. I think that the dynamic at play on that issue is that it varies wildly from state to state.
In Arizona, for example, there's a lot of uncertainty around what the law is going to be on abortion, versus in Nevada, where abortion rights are protected by a 1990 vote on a referendum.
It comes up more often when I talk to female voters in Arizona than it did in Nevada. I think that we have to remember that this election is complicated because it's an election where there are different dynamics in every single state.
Abortion will end up being a huge factor in certain places. But a lot of the initial anger did seem to recede a bit. People are saying now that it's maybe their second most important issue, but it's farther down the list.
WOLF: You've written this year about races featuring a Republican woman, a Democratic woman, and, in the case of Oregon, an independent woman. So I just wondered if you think there's something about having two women facing off, or three in the case of Oregon, that changes the dynamic of a race?
(Read Reston's reports on the races in Arizona and in Oregon, and the number of female candidates for governor.)
RESTON: It definitely has in Arizona. That race has been really, really nasty between Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs. There's a bit of a mean girl dynamic that you see.
On Twitter, you see a lot of Kari Lake's female supporters, for example, criticizing Katie Hobbs' shoes. Just things that you wouldn't think would matter in a governor's race.
I think she was wearing white sneakers at one event, and then she was wearing some buckle-strap shoes at a different event and that became a thing on Twitter. So we see there's a bit of pettiness that happens in terms of those kinds of observations that I don't think you would see in a race between two men.
At the same time, the race in Oregon is fascinating because it really has been driven by issues, and the difference is on issues like homelessness or crime among these different candidates.
In the women-on-women races, I think it really comes down to who the candidates are. And Kari Lake is the kind of candidate that relishes in being a provocateur and making the kind of comments that would get that kind of buzz on Twitter.
But I do think that a huge story coming out of the election next week is going to be a surge of conservative women being elected to the House. And we probably will see those gains being driven by women voters in some of those states.
There's still a long way to go for them to catch up with Democrats in terms of representation, but that's going to be a really interesting trend that we should spool out after we actually get some results.
WOLF: I wonder how having a large number of Republican women, even if it's fewer than Democratic women, will affect Democrats' ability to appeal to women voters as a party that represents their interests?
RESTON: That's partly what has made this year more complicated for Democrats. Republicans finally figured out that women could be really compelling messengers on some of these issues, like economic concerns or speaking to the concerns of moms.
That's been a factor in giving them an edge in some of these House races. It's a good thing for women overall, but also something that has really helped the Republican Party.
WOLF: You mentioned homelessness. I wonder if you could tell people on the East Coast how big of an issue that is on the West Coast.
RESTON: It absolutely is. You see that dynamic at play in the Oregon governor's race that you mentioned. And then also here in Los Angeles, where it is, by far and away, the biggest issue.
We have tents everywhere, as you've seen when you come here, and people just don't understand how there have been so many tens of millions of dollars pouring into that issue. It just doesn't seem to get better.
The reality of is that each time officials are able to get someone into housing, often there's another family that's falling into housing uncertainty. It just seems to be an issue that lawmakers have not been able to solve.
That is why it is the absolute central driving issue, for example, in the LA mayor's race. It may give Rick Caruso, who's a former Republican, a shot at winning even in a deeply Democratic city.
WOLF: You referred to camping out in grocery store parking lots and gas stations. Can you lift the veil and talk a little bit about how you find people to talk to? I think that's something that a lot of political journalists fail at doing. The exact wrong place to find somebody is at a political rally.
RESTON: True. Maybe it's because I covered so many of those political rallies over the years in five presidential campaigns.
When I go out, ahead of time I often look at the results from the last election to see where there was the closest red/blue dynamic, right? So how evenly divided a congressional district or even a precinct was if I can get a Trump-Biden breakdown. Then I tried to zoom into that place.
I like to go to Costco parking lots because I often feel that you get a really good mix of Democrats and Republicans there and independents because everybody goes to Costco.
WOLF: I think the idea is Democrats go to Target and Republicans go to Walmart. Is that what you're suggesting?
RESTON: Sometimes there's a little bit of truth to things like that, but I try to do a mix of Targets and Walmarts because you do get a bit of that mix. And then, just random grocery stores in that district. They've all got a good mix of voters. Farmers markets are a great place because, again, you'll get like a good mix of people.
I have to say also that one reason why I am partial to Costco is because it takes people a really long time to unload their grocery carts. And they also do this Rubik's Cube thing in the back of their trunk if they're packing a lot of things. And that means that they're a captive audience.
One of the biggest challenges as a reporter right now is that a lot of people don't want to talk to you. But if I can kind of stand there next to them while they're unpacking their groceries for a while, often I can convince them to talk to me. That makes it a little bit easier than a quick trip to the grocery store where I only have a minute to catch them in front of their trunk.
WOLF: I tried to talk to people from a recent CNN poll and found it extremely difficult to get anyone to return a phone call, text message or email, so it's good to go get them as they're loading their grocery cart. Why do you think it's more difficult trying to get people to talk to you?
RESTON: When I covered my first presidential campaign in 2004, people were so much more willing to talk. And even in 2008.
What's happening now is that people are afraid that anything that they say to a reporter that ends up in print or on TV, they're immediately going to be hunted down by people who disagree with them. That they will be criticized for what they say. I think it's this whole toxic environment out there right now that makes people guard their anonymity even more.
The other piece of it is just that we are in a time that is so much more tribal. People will often see the press, unfortunately, as the enemy, even though we're out there to tell everyone's story. I think that's why people don't want to give their names.
My strikeout rate now in getting someone to agree to talk to me -- I have to approach more than twice as many people or maybe three times as many people during the course of the day to get a third of them to talk to me.
And that is not the way that it used to be. It's a reflection of the sad state of our politics. People really would much rather not even think about it and certainly not put their name out there.
WOLF: Have you had to change the way that you incorporate these interviews into your reporting in order to grant anonymity to people just to figure out what the general person is thinking?
RESTON: Absolutely. A lot of those conversations that I have out there, I just say to them, "I totally understand, let's just talk off the record."
I still will have the conversation with the voters who don't want to give their name. Because I want to have their perspective in my head when I'm writing the story, even if I can't use their actual quotes.
The other thing is that when you're out in the field, I think the most important thing is to talk to as many people as possible until you start to hear a common theme. I'll just keep going with interviews until I get to that place where I feel comfortable that I've captured what a lot of people are saying.
In reality, a lot of those conversations now have to be off-the-record conversations, but I still think that they help us explain what the real narrative is out there.