At the time I thought it was insane that people would still support Bush after going into Iraq. It was pretty obvious to me, and should have been to anyone paying attention, that invading Iraq was nothing more than a pet project for Bush/Cheney. The reasoning for invading them was completely disingenuous. I thought it couldn't get much worse than Bush. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Don't forget that the right really played up the social issues in 2004 too. It might be hard to remember, but people were a lot less comfortable with gay marriage back then. Bush might have got a lot of votes that weren't necessarily a referendum on the war, but from fear over rapid change. Even when Obama first ran in 2008, he wasn't openly supporting gay marriage yet. Biden actually came out in support of that ahead of him (though not by very long).
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u/Zealousideal_Fuel_23 May 26 '23
2004 election was held during the 4 months that the Iraq War appeared to be going well.