By Brian Montopoli

Married women vs. single women: The conventional wisdom is that Mr. Obama has an advantage with women and that Romney has the edge with men, and that holds true in this poll: The president leads 49 percent to 43 percent among women, while Romney leads 49 percent to 43 percent among men.

But women are not a monolithic group: Among married women – who represented 29 percent of registered voters in this poll – Romney has the edge, 49 percent to 42 percent. The president, meanwhile, dominates among single women, 62 percent to 34 percent. The poll shows the president has a big edge over Romney when it comes to who voters are confident will make the right decisions on women’s health issues, but such issues would seem to be more important to single women than married women. For Romney, the best path to closing the gap among women may not be to win over single women, but instead to maximize turnout among women who are married.

The above is an excerpt from the article “Five takeaways from the new CBS/NYT poll,” which can be read in its entirety here.