She specialized in the American presidency, the United States Congress, and electoral behavior.
[3] Ragsdale has co-authored two books: The Elusive Executive: Discovering Statistical Patterns in the Presidency with Gary King (1988), and The American Nonvoter with Jerrold G. Rusk (2017).
[2] She had previously served as the head of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
[7] Ragsdale won the 2019 Betty Moulds Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Political Science Association.
[8] Ragsdale has been cited in The New York Times,[9] The Boston Globe,[10] Bloomberg,[11] and The Salisbury Post.