Yes. I can't remember more specifically beyond the fact that it gave me a sinking feeling, though. These were the important voters the election was dependent upon. I did feel surrounded by people I couldn't connect with, but that had nothing to do with the election. I wasn't scared at that point; I think I thought the right side would prevail and Americans would exercise sound judgment when push came to shove.
I was scared later. I've heard some people establish the importance of the 2004 election for months, maybe even years, and when it was over, they just shrugged, claiming Kerry wouldn't have been able to do anything and would have gotten blamed for it. This is probably true, but my reaction was "WTF" upon hearing this. I remember how devastated everyone was on social media after the election, and in person. 2004 for me was feeling like that and a large chunk of the people around me not caring, whose sage advice was something like "take a walk". 2004 was like 2016 but there were significantly fewer people who gave a shit about it once it was all over. This made me more suspicious of political fervor which would carry over into the next election.
Did 2004 matter? It would seem at first glance that it didn't. There wasn't much in the second term that could even get passed. They attempted to privatize Social Security and that was a disaster for them. They interfered with Terry Schiavo and that was a disaster. As for a Kerry administration, Kerry was chosen as the nominee because people thought he was "electable", This was probably because people read somewhere that Kerry was a good choice because the Republicans would simply refuse to criticize anyone who was in the military, out of respect for the troops. (Or something like that) Kerry having served in Vietnam was supposed to be some kind of bulletproof armor against Republican attacks. Changing things was not a big part of that campaign; that campaign was "We can do this war on terror thing better than the Bush administration". Based on this, a Kerry presidency would have been rather moderate. I can't imagine much would have been done, and I suspect there would be many concessions to appease Republicans who would nevertheless declare him a tyrant.
When I think about it more, I'm not convinced it didn't matter. I frequently see politics in terms of messages. What message was sent by re-electing those people? The message that you can get away with it, and it's fine because in 12 years many of your harshest critics will see you as a hero, anyway. The consequence is that other people realize that they can do anything they like while in the office because truth doesn't matter, you can go and create your own reality (This indifference to truth and excitement at creating your reality is amazingly not that different from what some progressives believe.) It's no wonder that Donald Trump felt a free hand to behave the way he did given the precedent. Why should Donald Trump expect punishment when his Republican predecessors didn't? It's possible the 2004 Democratic defeat might have paved the way for Donald Trump's post-truth presidency.