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One of the most interesting numbers in the new Washington Post-ABC News poll is buried deep within the cross tabs.

The poll shows that, on the generic ballot, the GOP leads 50-44 among all likely voters. But among unmarried women, Democrats have a48-43 edge.

That might seem to be a good thing for Democrats, except that they count on single women in a much biggerway -- in fact, so much so thatthis demographic is routinely highlighted as the key to Democrats keepingthe Senate.

"To Hold Senate, Democrats Rely on Single Women," wrote the New York Times in July. The group Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund commissioned a poll from a Democratic pollster around the same time and headlined it, "New Poll: Unmarried Women Voters Could Make the Difference in Senate Battleground States. Then, when thesupport for Democrats among single women in that same poll doubled, Real Clear Politics reported, "Unmarried Women Fuel Pollster's Optimism for Dems."

It makes sense. After all, this is a big portion of the so-called "Obama coalition" -- voters whoare less apt to vote in midterms but turned out big for the presidentin 2008 and 2012 and voted for him by huge margins. Also in that coalition are African American, Hispanics and young people. Unmarried women, though, comprise a significantlybigger share of eligible voters than the others: about 25 percent.

Over the last four elections, here's how the unmarried-woman vote has looked:

As you can see, all of these margin are much larger than five points. Democrats have won unmarried women by between 25 and 41 points each of the past four elections. Obama won 70 percent of them in 2008, to just 29 percent for John McCain.

Of course, we shouldn't read too much into one poll, and breaking out small sub-samples (this poll interviews 228 registered unmarried woman voters and 151 who are considered "likely" to vote on Nov. 4) results in high margins of error. The idea that unmarried women will only favor Democrats by five points next week is probablyfar-fetched, and the margin of error means that five-point margin couldbe significantly higher.

Indeed, recent polls from AP-GfK and the Pew Research Center show unmarried women favoring Democrats by 14 and 20 points, respectively.And the Democratic pollster referenced above, Democracy Corps, showed the gap at 22 points.

But all fourof these polls still show smaller margins than have exited overthe last four elections. In other words, all of these polls show this group is a precarious one for Democrats, though none of them indicate women will definitely favor Democrats by less than in recent races.

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The Fix: Single women are turning into a huge question mark for Democrats