23 Facts About Hillary Clinton and Common Questions about Her

Born and raised in the Chicago area, Hillary Clinton turned 71 in 2018, and is a grandmother of two. That offers you several Hillary Clinton facts, and yet there are so many more to discover. A wife and mother (as well as grandmother), she is also a major American icon.

As one expert says, Hillary Rodham Clinton is “first major U.S. female political figure since Eleanor Roosevelt” and ranked as a “force to be reckoned with in American politics”. There are many Hillary Clinton facts, and just as many myths. In this article, we’ll look at a lot of the most common questions about her with the goal of providing a lot of accurate and authentic Hillary Clinton facts. We’ll begin with a set of basic questions and then look at her political career in recent years and then a lot of oddball facts that a lot of people want to know.

1. Who is Hillary Clinton?

2. Where was Hillary Clinton born?

3. Where is Hillary Clinton from?

4. How old is Hillary Clinton?

5. Where did Hillary Clinton go to college?

6. What is Hillary Clinton’s IQ?

Hillary Clinton was born Hillary Rodham in 1947. She was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the middle-class suburb of Park Ridge. She was raised in a home that upheld very traditional, mid-American values such as church, family, social obligations and school. She says she was heavily influenced by her early religious schooling and attended a Methodist church in which active and applied Christianity was essential.

Clinton says that her earliest philosophies evolved around the adage “to whom much is given, much is expected,” and it could be said that she strove to live up to that concept. As early as her teen years she became involved in social action and even babysat for the children of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s children when he spoke in Chicago.

She excelled in high school and then went on to Wellesley College in 1965, majoring in political science and minoring in psychology. Though she would go on to graduate studies, she says that those “undergraduate years were important to her developing world view and growing sense of personal empowerment.” Even in her teens, she was already amazing with communication and became very active in social and political movements on campus and off.

She started her political life in her final summer of college, heading to Washington to work for the House Republican Conference.

She graduated with the highest distinction and delivered the very first student address that the college had ever offered during commencement ceremonies. In the autumn of 1969, she was enrolled in Yale University’s Law School and was one of only 30 females in the entire class.

And as her undergraduate years had provided an array of opportunities and stimulation, so too did her time at Yale. Here, she began to recognize her intense interest in issues relating to poor and disadvantaged children, and would soon begin working with Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. She directed Rodham to Walter Mondale’s Senate subcommittee because it was doing a study of issues relating to migrant families.

She would continue volunteering with organizations and groups that focused in on children and improving their situation in terms of legalities and child law. Upon graduating, her work drove her to return to Washington and a full-time job at the Children’s Defense Fund. Focusing in on juvenile justice issues, she was a staff attorney and traveled the United States to work on cases relating specifically to juvenile issues.

However, in 1974, Rodham was selected as one of only 43 lawyers in the country to support the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. Because he resigned before any impeachment could proceed, the legal staff was released. This led her to take a role as a teacher at the University of Arkansas Law School. It was also where she would marry Bill Clinton, a fellow law student from Yale.

Clearly, Hillary Rodham Clinton had a great deal of intelligence, and if one of the Hillary Clinton facts you wish to know is her IQ, you won’t get a precise measure. You can, however, reach a fairly accurate estimate. This is because there are many ways of gauging someone’s IQ. As we have reported in another article on Barack Obama, there are average IQs for college graduates as well as Ivy League graduates. This would mean that Clinton’s IQ is probably above the average Ivy League level of 140.

In fact, other statistics indicate that marriages are often between people within a single standard deviation of their partner in terms of IQ. Because we know things like Bill Clinton’s estimated IQ is in the 140 range, it is likely that Hillary Clinton’s hits that same mark. Remember, she was an honors student in college, asked to give the first commencement address by a student of Wellesley and handpicked to help with the Nixon impeachment.

Clearly, she had book smarts, high vocabulary and the high level of capability with evaluation, logic and reasoning needed to be a good attorney. She also has social awareness and emotional intelligence, all pointing towards a higher than normal IQ. Putting her at 140 to 145 is fairly accurate.

And while any collection of Hillary Clinton facts has to include things about her early life and education, it must also look at her political life.

7. Is Hillary Clinton a democrat?

8. Who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate?

9. Did Hillary Clinton win the popular vote?

10. How many people voted for Hillary Clinton?

After marrying Clinton in Arkansas in 1975, the couple remained there and Bill would become the attorney general of the state and eventually the governor. That whole time the pair of them were (and remain) Democrats. As First Lady of Arkansas, she became partner in a law firm, gave birth to her only child, Chelsea, and remained First Lady for the next decade-plus. Her emphasis was public service and policy reform, and during the latter part of her time in Arkansas, she was focused on the state’s educational system. Additionally, she led the Home Instruction Program for Pre-School Youngsters (HIPPY) in the state, bringing education to children between the ages of four and five.

She garnered a national reputation for excellence in law and both Clintons were honored with humanitarian awards.

Then, the White House became their home. Hillary remained dedicated to most of her former causes and as First Lady she said it was her goal to make a difference by looking at child welfare and health care issues. She drew a great deal of attention at all times for her intelligence, but also because she seemed to irritate some people (an issue we look at later). As an official White House report indicates, “As First Lady, her public involvement with many activities sometimes led to controversy. Undeterred by critics, Hillary won many admirers for her staunch support for women around the world and her commitment to children’s issues.”

She emulated Eleanor Roosevelt in many ways, even authoring a weekly newspaper column, advocating for health insurance and children’s policies, and authoring several best-selling books. She even won a Grammy award for her recording of “It Takes a Village”.

Her life in politics did not conclude with the end of her husband’s time as President of the United States. After that, she was elected to the New York State Senate and was the first female elected statewide in New York. During President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, he asked her to return and to serve as the U.S. Secretary of State, which she did from 2009 to 2013.

Then, in 2015 she announced that she would be making a bid for the Presidency in the upcoming election. NOTE: This was her second attempt as she came up against Barack Obama in the Democratic Primaries in 2008 andgave him her support though she had won the New Hampshire primary in January of that same year. Interestingly enough, she was formally nominated as a candidate in August of 2008 during the DNC in Denver. However, she interrupted roll call to request that Barack Obama be nominated by acclamation.

Receiving his support, in return, during her campaign, it seemed to many that she would win. Even on the night of the election in 2016, many believed she was going to easily win the presidency. Campaigning with Tim Kaine as her running mate, she enjoyed a great deal of success on the campaign trail and initial polls put her as a front runner to win the election. Which she, technically, did.

And this is when Hillary Clinton facts turn into Hillary Clinton arguments because she did win the popular vote but lost the election in the electoral vote or Electoral College. At this writing, the official tally is Clinton taking 48% of the popular vote and Trump taking 46% of it. With only 55% of the voting public turning out for the election, it gave Clinton more than two million votes in her favor.

So, she did win the popular vote and she did so by more than two million votes, but Trump’s success in what are known as “battleground states” handed him the election through the electoral votes. In fact, analysts have determined that although Trump’s high number of votes did not match Clinton’s impressive totals, it boiled down to just three counties in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that allowed him a technical victory.

If you are eager for basic Hillary Clinton facts regarding the outcome of the 2016 election, they would look like this: Hillary Clinton took in a remarkable 65.9 million votes and won by a margin of 2.8 million votes. Those are the facts.

Millions were shocked at the outcome of the election, and yet Clinton quickly conceded the election to Trump. She then went on to make a remarkable speech that asked all of her supporters to also accept the outcome and join her in hoping that Trump would be a “successful president for all Americans.”

Days after the election, while millions of Clinton’s supporters were scratching their heads and wondering how their candidate did not win the election, a woman in upstate New York went out for a hike to “take her mind off of the US election results”. As she made her way through the woods, with her child strapped to her back in a backpack designed for toting infants, she ran into Hillary and Bill Clinton also enjoying some time spent in nature and away from the spotlights. Posing for a photo with her fellow hiker, it was the first time Clinton had been seen since conceding the election.

On the morning of Trump’s inauguration, Clinton took to social media to say that she was attending the event to honor democracy and its enduring values, going on to express her ongoing faith in “our country and its future”. That led many to wonder what the former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State would do in the future. They didn’t have to wait long.

11. Where is Hillary Clinton today?

12. What is Hillary Clinton doing now?

13. Is Hillary Clinton sick?

After leaving the White House, the Clinton’s relocated to New York, where Hillary would soon become a State Senator. Their main home is in Chappaqua, New York. Not far from New York City, it is part of Westchester County and where the couple spends a great deal of time. They also retain a home in Washington, DC – a mansion known as Whitehaven House, a Georgian building part of the city’s Embassy Row area.

And while it would have been entirely possible for both of the Clintons to fade quietly into a private life of relative peace and calm, they have opted to remain active. Hillary is particularly in the spotlight, and in September of 2017 released another memoir, “What Happened” that chronicles the campaign and all that transpired in her life throughout and following the election.

During that time, she went on many interviews to promote the book and during one such encounter for CBS’ Sunday program, she said, “I am done with being a candidate, but I am not done with politics because I literally believe that our country’s future is at stake.”

She has lived up to her words, speaking out in 2017 against the violence of the devastating protests in Charlottesville, as well as publicly commenting on healthcare, LGBT rights, sexual harassment, and more. She once again delivered Wellesley’s commencement address and began taking personal trips with a distinctly political undertone.

For example, in March 2018 she was invited by Indian prince Richard Holkar to travel to India and make a speech about current affairs and encouraging people to take a much closer look at Trump’s ties to Russia, saying “Follow the money,” to the packed audience.

She even commented on her thoughts about the high number of white women who voted for Trump, suggesting that it was old-fashioned pressures to “vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son…whoever believes you should.”

Only a few months later, it was announced that the Clintons would begin a North American tour entitled “An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.” These events were described as conversations and a sharing of anecdotes and stories that shaped the pair’s careers and decades of public service. They also promised to address current issues and ideas about the future.

Several times in her public life, Clinton has experienced minor to rather serious health issues. This is one of the reasons that people seeking Hillary Clinton facts often ask if she is ill or concealing some sort of condition.

The realities of her health issues are actually very simple. In 2012, she fainted due to dehydration. She sustained a concussion but seemed to recover quickly. However, 15 days later it was discovered that her concussion had caused a blood clot to form between her brain and skull, and she was hospitalized for monitoring. Days after that she was released from the hospital, and around three weeks later she testified for more than five hours before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, relating to the Benghazi affair (something we will look at shortly).

Clearly, anyone who can perform this way after a head injury is not at all sickly or ill. Yet, another public fainting spell during the 2016 campaign made many wonder if she had another health problem. Again, it was lightheadedness due to slight dehydration and the typical fatigue of campaigning. Clinton also has a history of, let’s call it, clumsiness.

She has taken many falls including a slip on some stairs (wearing high heels) in London, injuring her foot. The incident in 2016 when dehydration caused a faint, and again that same year while climbing steep stairs to an airplane she tripped and fell. She has also fallen entering many buildings, often because of the combination of steps and heels, and has even fallen inside of her home when wearing new glasses that caused her to experience double vision. She also fell while boarding a plane in 2011, tripping over the lip in the doorway, and again in 2018 falling down stairs in India and spraining her hand.

So, she is not ill, just uncoordinated and unfortunate as she is so often being filmed when entering buildings, making public appearances, and climbing down stairs – all moments when the best of us could trip or fall.

Never has her bad luck or lack of coordination interfered with her job, and she is generally quite robust in all other aspects of physical health and fitness.

Yet, questions around her competence or job performance seem to dog her wherever she goes and whatever role she fills. This is why those eager for Hillary Clinton facts might find the following questions quite common, though the answers very different from what certain elements in the modern political scene would have you believe. If you are eager for authentic Hillary Clinton facts relating to some of the biggest controversies surrounding her, read on. Let’s start with the big questions and work our way through what might be described as some “causal” factors.

14. Why do people hate Hillary Clinton?

15. Why is Benghazi Hillary Clinton’s fault?

16. Did Hillary Clinton sell uranium to Russia?

17. Did Hillary Clinton lie to the FBI?

18. Is Hillary Clinton going to be prosecuted?

19. Is Hillary Clinton going to jail?

Why do people hate or intensely dislike Hillary Clinton? It is something she has asked, too, saying in her latest memoir “What makes me such a lightning rod for fury? I’m really asking. I’m at a loss. I think it’s partly because I’m a woman.” Yet, there is far more to it than that. Even she admits that an unhealthy fixation on her marriage and her decisions within her marriage contribute to a sense of dislike. After all, Bill Clinton was impeached and during those proceedings admitted to ongoing affairs with very young women and a history of philandry.

If she is so intelligent, many argue, why stay with that man unless it is for convenience, appearances, money, and so on. In her memoir, “What Happened,” she answers that lingering question quite frankly:

“I heard it again on the 2016 campaign … it’s just a marriage on paper now,’ she writes, adding ‘(he is reading this over my shoulder in our kitchen with our dogs underfoot and in a minute, he will reorganize our bookshelves for the millionth time … but I don’t mind because he really loves to organize those bookshelves).

There were times that I was deeply unsure about whether our marriage could or should survive,’ she wrote. ‘But on those days, I asked myself the questions that mattered to me: Do I still love him? And can I still be in this marriage without becoming unrecognizable to myself — twisted by anger, resentment, or remoteness? The answers were always yes.”

In a nutshell – she loves her husband despite his human failings and the painful marital issues. Yet, the dislike of Clinton goes far beyond questions about her stance as a wife.

As one journalist explained, “A full analysis of Hillary-hate would require peeling back layers of cultural as well as political history. Clinton has been a public presence and symbol of female progress, and thus a flashpoint of both admiration and resentment, for over two decades. It’s hard to think of another politician whose career has been as challenged by the quakes and shakes of social change—and the resulting vicissitudes of expectations—particularly as concerns gender.”

After all, her tenure as First Lady in Arkansas and as First Lady in the White House saw her catching a great deal of flack from traditionalists and conservatives who believed that Clinton’s career and independent views were a threat to the image of the nation’s first family. This seemed to revive during the 2016 campaign. Though Clinton’s political stances and comments had changed very little since her time in the White House, two decades later the white, middle-class women raised by those briefcase toting career women who modeled themselves after Clinton seemed to vote against her.

Again, as that same journalist explained, “it’s an outmoded, romantic notion that policy, experience, and wisdom guide voter’s choices in elections. We like to think of ourselves as rational; in fact, it appears that much electoral decision-making is herd based and highly influenced by irrational attachments and unconscious biases. Rather, partisan loyalties and social identities are much more powerful forces in contemporary politics.”

So, instead of voting for her and supporting her because of her amazing achievements, many women turned their backs on her because she seemed too much a part of the “establishment”. Clinton’s articulate nature, her notable intelligence, her never-ending politeness and even her wealth of experience and insider knowledge were not seen as assets so much as being somewhat fake and even elitist by many.

In other words, can you trust someone who speaks with such care and deliberateness? Doesn’t indicate some sort of lie or covering up? Though the public might never have heard that Clinton needed to be knocked from her “high horse” or taken down a few notches, that was the tenor of many articles and comments about her during the campaign, and indeed throughout her career.

Many also argue that because she refuses to behave as women are expected, culturally, to behave, it strikes a deep seated nerve in people of certain generations. This seemed to play out in the election, with voters under the age of 40 going with Clinton and those over the age of 40 seeming to favor Trump. Her self-control was often reduced to coldness or uninspiring, yet any shouting or emphatic speech left her labeled “screeching” or “unpresidential”.

And because Clinton is not only female but also an outspoken feminist, it added another level of antagonism from the public. Committed to children’s issues as well as women’s many women felt a need to distance themselves from this type of female role model. Historically, this behavior has always appeared and whether you are discussing other female politicians like Israel’s Golda Meir or the UK’s Margaret Thatcher, there is that same disdain towards their feminism.

So, her role as American “political royalty” and her gender have made her a bit unlikeable to many in the public. However, there are those controversial matters. For some, she appears a bit “crooked” because of issues during her time as a private attorney, First Lady and onward. Some dislike that she has a lot of powerful political donors as well as favorable media attention. Others dislike that she may change her stance on some issues.

And on top of it all are the “big” controversies. As those questions above point out, many seek Hillary Clinton facts relating to issues like Benghazi, uranium sales to Russia and the underlying cause for Trump supporter’s chant to “lock her up”. So, let’s unpack these issues and get you some definitive Hillary Clinton facts about them.

Benghazi is the name given to an attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11/2012. In it, four Americans were killed, including the ambassador Christopher Stevens. In October of that same year, Clinton took full responsibility for the attack on the consulate and the resulting deaths. She has never denied her culpability.

What she, and the Obama Administration, did do was fail to initially admit to the nature of the attack. First expressing that it was the result of a protest and unexpected, it was later discovered that almost immediately the Administration and Clinton knew it was a planned attack that might have been prevented if the government had been more cautious.

After the attack, Republicans forced a series of investigations with the goal of finding either Obama or Clinton (or both) to blame for all that transpired. They were never able to find any evidence that the Administration, particularly Clinton, was at fault (personally). Essentially, it was a way to say that Obama’s terrorism policies were weak and actually encouraged attacks against Americans.

Yet, that bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found that the attacks were preventable. The investigation found that the Administration did not hold up any military response, but that fortifying the mission would have been wiser, and in this way Clinton was ready to accept the blame because such improvements were her responsibility and not that of the Administration.

And what about the uranium sales to Russia? This issue is still unfolding in real time as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa requested information as recently as December 2018 relating to information from a raid on a former FBI contractor’s home.

Essentially, the issue is this: Republicans claim that during her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton approved a deal that would give control of roughly 20% of the country’s uranium supply to a Russian firm in exchange for hefty donations to her Clinton Foundation. This would occur through the sale of Uranium One, a mining company in South Africa that was held by a Canadian based firm.

Clinton would have had to approve the transfer of a material of worth, and the rumors indicated that she profited by it.

The truth is that any and all such claims are entirely false. As the famed Snopes website documents in its investigation, “Clinton was one of ninecabinet members and department heads that sit on the CFIUS, and the secretary of the treasury is its chairperson. CFIUS members are collectively charged with evaluating proposed foreign acquisitions for potential national security issues, then turning their findings over to the president. By law, the committee can’t veto a transaction; only the president can.”

Not only could that sort of deal been impossible, but it seems that Clinton didn’t even directly get involved as Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez was the one who sat in on the deal. Was uranium exported, perhaps, but it had nothing to do with Clinton and she never received donations from the company. What she did receive was a huge donation from a founder of the company who had sold his stake in Uranium One in 2007 – almost a decade earlier.

Nonetheless, the Republican dominated Congress announced in 201y that it was launching an investigation into the matter.

And what about lying to the FBI? James Comey, who as head of the FBI was the one to open investigations into Clinton’s use of private email servers, has said repeatedly that she did not lie. She used personal email as secretary of State and relied on two servers kept in her own home. She insisted that she didn’t have classified emails on her server from her time at the State Department. Subsequent examinations did find classified information, but that the evidence collected was not near enough to what would be constituted as a punishable crime. He went so far as to ask the Justice Department to see it simply as extreme carelessness and mishandling.

At this time, she faces no prosecution for the matter and does not face jail time over it. The Congressional investigation of Uranium One is likely to turn up the clear cut facts that she did not participate in the transfer of ownership or materials and did not benefit in any way from it.

So, if you want Hillary Clinton facts relating to some of the controversies surrounding her, you can rest assured that she is unlikely to face any sort of prosecution or jail time in the future. In fact, the law enforcement bodies involved are still curious as to why it remains a matter of public concern as it was investigated and deemed a non-issue.

And concerns about Clinton’s profiting from her time in politics should also be heavily tempered by one simple fact – all politicians profit from their roles in government. Clinton has assumed major roles and because of that, she has earned a substantial income. Her net worth and an oddball assortment of other Hillary Clinton facts also rank highly in terms of common questions about the former Secretary of State.

20. What is Hillary Clinton’s net worth?

21. How tall is Hillary Clinton?

22. Is Hillary Clinton gay?

23. Is Hillary Clinton Jewish?

With her best selling books and high ranking role in government, it is obvious that Clinton will have a high net worth. Using her tax returns and other data, experts say that her current net worth is around $45 million, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the Clinton’s were millions of dollars in debt when they left the White House in 2001. Her book deals, speaking engagements, investments and real estate holdings are what stand behind that figure.

And now we can look at those unusual Hillary Clinton facts that have no real relevance to her role as a public figure. One of the common questions about her is just how tall she stands. Since she is a larger than life figure, many are surprised to see her in person and realize that she is of very short stature, standing only 5’ 4” in height. During the 2016 presidential debates many were shocked at the enormous difference in height and weight between Clinton and Trump.

Next up is a fairly unsurprising question about Clinton, considering the fact that she is a very independent, powerful, and self-assured female who is often surrounded by other women of the same nature. Is she gay? Let’s allow one women’s magazine to give a well-worded answer: “We’ve heard it before. It emerged in 2000 when she was running for the Senate. It surged in 2008 when she first ran for president. In 2013, when pundits were opining she would run for president in 2016, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck said she would be the first lesbian in the Oval Office. Now, as Hillary Clinton is the putative nominee of the Democratic Party – a groundbreaking achievement in American politics and history – that rumor, as well as others, is back.

It’s all the Right can think of to attack her. Because conservatives still think being a lesbian is the worst thing a woman can be. In conservative circles and among the conservative electorate lesbian = man-hater.”

In other words, no, she is not gay.

And lastly, there are some who wonder if she is Jewish. She is not, but her daughter Chelsea did marry a Jewish man and has two children with him. Note: Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka also married a Jewish man and converted to that faith, currently raising their children as Jewish.

Hillary has consistently stated that her Methodist upbringing still shapes her approach to life. She has described her faith as the “animating influence of her life,” but not something she goes around discussing. Taking her cues from the Sermon on the Mount, she does not want to come across as a hypocrite. In a 2018 interview she said of her Christian faith as “foremost in my mind. I’ve tried to express it, sometimes more effectively than other times, over the course of the last twenty or thirty years. But I’ve tried to be guided by it, even more importantly.”

So, there you have a collection of Hillary Clinton facts. While some can help you to understand this very public figure a bit better, others are more of a gossipy and non-essential nature. These are facts that many people seek when doing any sort of research about her. Though she has said she is no longer a candidate and will not run for election in 2020, she is not leaving the political world at any time. She is likely to continue speaking and publishing, and as she has throughout her career, advocating for children and women, healthcare and other crucial matters.