If whether Humphrey could have won the election depends on which counterpart relation is operative, then de re modal truths about Humphrey lack determinate truth conditions, which Chisholm's modal essentialism explicitly rejects.

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Chisholm(as a philosopher being cited): Roderick Chisholm, an important 20th-century American philosopher who argued for essentialism (the view that things have properties they must have).
De re(in modal logic and metaphysics): A Latin phrase meaning 'about the thing itself'; it refers to a statement about what must be true of a specific person or object no matter what.
Determinate truth conditions(in logic and philosophy of language): Clear, definite rules that decide whether a statement is true or false—without this, you can't tell if something is actually true.
Humphrey(as a historical reference in modal logic discussions): Hubert Humphrey, a real politician who almost won the 1968 U.S. presidential election; philosophers use him as an example when discussing whether things could have turned out differently.
counterpart relation(Used by counterpart theorists to interpret de re modal claims.): A relation based on resemblance that, unlike identity, is not transitive.
modal(in logic and metaphysics): Dealing with possibility and necessity—questions about what could be true, what must be true, and what's merely contingent (could go either way).
modal essentialism(Presented as a coarser-grained alternative to Aristotelian essentialism): The view that a property is essential to a kind if and only if it is a necessary property of that kind

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