Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today is one of the most senior Democratic Party politicians in the United States Congress, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn.

Mr. Clyburn's power base is in South Carolina.

It was there that he entered politics, having started out his career as a teacher.

Back in 1992, he won a seat in the House of Representatives, and he's been there ever since,

rising to be House majority whip and a major power broker in the party. In fact, he could make a

claim to have rescued Joe Biden's floundering presidential campaign earlier this year.

Mr. Clyburn's backing helped Biden win the South Carolina primary,

and he rode his newfound momentum all the way to the nomination.

In just a few days, that same momentum could take him into the White House.

The polls say he is strong favorite to beat Donald Trump.

But the Democratic Party was traumatized by the failure of Hillary Clinton in 2016, and there

is still a residual fear that Donald Trump could defy the odds again.

Jim Clyburn joins me now from South Carolina.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Let's start with the horse race aspect of Trump versus Biden. All the polls,

the national polls have Mr Biden up by eight, nine, even ten points some of them. But how deep are the scars from

2016? How worried are you that there is a hidden Trump vote that is going to come out on November

3rd? Well, I don't think that there's any more of a hidden Trump vote than there's a hidden

Biden vote. I know from my own experiences, there are people who I have talked with in recent weeks who

are very much for Biden.

So I think there are some secretive Trump voters, but I also know there are some secretive

Biden voters. Those things are pretty much

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