Hydrophobically Associating Water-soluble Polymers (HAWPs) had potential applications in many industrial societies due to their special properties. Recently Hydrophobically Associating Poly-Electrolytes (HAPEs) had attracted increasing interests because they possessed high water-solubility and peculiar solution property and realized multi-responsive properties, which all stemmed from their ionic groups. In this paper, HAPEs are classified into Type I (ionic units and hydrophobic groups from different monomers) and Type II (ionic units and hydrophobic groups from the same monomer) according to the relatived position between ionic units and hydrophobic groups and present research state of various kinds of HAPEs, such as anionic HAPEs, cationic HAPEs and amphoteric HAPEs, was reviewed according to the different types of ions. Suggestions and development trends of the research field are put forward in terms of the present situation and betaine HAPEs will become a hot spot of this research field.