I think the claim of not being eligible was just a side effect of that TurboTax return somehow getting messed up. When I started the state return, it failed to transfer any of the W-2 information, not even the taxpayers' names.
I quit the program and started a new return, and this time it successfully applied the IRA deduction and transferred everything to the state return. Time consuming and frustrating, but at least now I have made progress.
