Political positions

Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journal's 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of 1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journal's subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social and Foreign. Averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Total average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative.p According to FiveThirtyEight's measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."

Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative). Through 2008, she had an average lifetime 90 percent "Liberal Quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action, and a lifetime eight percent rating from the American Conservative Union.

In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas. Clinton currently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (though she previously described it as "the gold standard" of trade deals). She supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank and holds that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security". As senator (2001–2009), her record on trade was mixed; she voted in favor of some trade agreements but not others.

Given the climate of unlimited campaign contributions following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to limit "unaccountable money" in politics. In July 2016, she "committed" to introducing a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision. On December 7, 2015, Clinton presented her detailed plans for regulating Wall Street financial activities in the New York Times.

Accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, Clinton supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline.

She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge".

Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.

On LGBT rights, she supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has changed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a US president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper (Philadelphia Gay News).

Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "is at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Expressing support for Common Core she said, "The really unfortunate argument that's been going on around Common Core, it's very painful because the Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort. It was actually nonpartisan. It wasn't politicized ... Iowa has had a testing system based on a core curriculum for a really long time. And speaking to Iowans you see the value of it, you understand why that helps you organize your whole education system. And a lot of states unfortunately haven't had that and so don't understand the value of a core, in this sense a Common Core."

On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In April 2017, Clinton called for strikes against Syrian airfields.

In 2000, Clinton advocated for the elimination of the electoral college. She promised to co-sponsor legislation that would abolish it, resulting in the direct election of the president.