[3] From 1973 to 1975, Andersen was Associate Study Director at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
[2] She then joined the political science faculty at Ohio State University, where from 1981 to 1984 she was also the Director of the Polimetrics Laboratory.
Her first book, The Creation of a Democratic Majority, presented evidence that party realignments in the United States, like the creation of the New Deal coalition, can be the result of mobilizing non-voters to turn out to vote rather than frequent voters switching parties.
"[5] Andersen's second book, After Suffrage: Women in Partisan and Electoral Politics Before the New Deal, was published in 1996.
The book studies the incorporation of immigrants into the American political system by focusing on the acquisition of political power by immigrants to the small American cities of Chico, Spokane, Waco, East Lansing, Syracuse, and Fort Collins.