Alexander-Bahrenberg was noted for her years of "outspoken disagreement" with university President Edward J. James, with "her colleagues on the board, and [with] other partisans of the University." Nevertheless, she said she held no animosity for James, and she even entertained him and his wife "lavishly" in her home. "But when it comes to business, I know neither friend nor foe," she said. She was instrumental in defeating a legislative appropriation for a veterinary sciences department at the university. "Since that time," according to one newspaper account, "the university administration and President Abbott of the trustees" worked against her reelection. In 1912, she faced opposition in the Republican state convention in Springfield from Mrs. Emmons Blaine, daughter of Medill McCormick, proprietor of the Chicago Tribune. She was, however, nominated for reelection "despite the combined opposition of the Chicago Women's Club, the Alumni Association and Illini of the University, numbering 5[,]000 students, which endorsed so powerful a candidate as Mrs. Emmons Blaine." During her campaign, she said:  I know the faculty does not want me on the board. My endorsement consists chiefly of the votes of the people which have given me the biggest majorities ever attained by a political candidate in Illinois. I think I am the woman for the position because of unique financial training. I was owner and director of the street railway system of Belleville after the death of my first husband, Dr. Alexander. I took in money by the nickels and spent it by the thousands. Alexander-Bahrenberg lost the election. She spoke at the 44th anniversary of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association in October 1912 in Galesburg, Illinois. She said that suffrage could not be won by a national political party because it was strictly a matter for the states to decide. Bahrenberg was a member of the Equal Suffrage Society of Moline, Illinois, in October 1912. She was a delegate to a convention of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association in 1913. A leader in the Illinois division of the Woman's Relief Corps, the auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic veterans' organization, she was elected national secretary of the corps in 1915. The other candidates were Isabel Worrell Ball of Washington, D.C., Lois Knauff of Ohio and Lue Steward Wardworth of Massachusetts.