By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

The 2024 Iowa Caucuses are now a little less than six months away and the intensity of the GOP presidential contest is growing.

About 2000 evangelical Christians heard from six candidates Friday in Des Moines. Former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson interviewed each candidate onstage, with the war in Ukraine as the top topic.

Bob Vander Plaats is president and CEO of The Family Leader, the group that hosted the event. He urged the crowd to look for an authentic candidate.

“God has called us for such a time as this. Pinch yourself! We’re on a front row seat of this. He has us in the crosshairs of it,” Vander Plaats said. “…Raise up a standard bearer that we can cheer on and tell our kids and grandkids: ‘Grow up to be like him.’”

Vander Plaats has said it’s time for the GOP to “turn the page” from former President Trump. David Johnson of Grimes, who was at the Family Leadership Summit, said he’s tired of the way Trump is acting these days.

“I was a big Trump supporter for the last two times he ran, but I’m just wearying of his meanness, for lack of a better word,” Johnson said. “He wants to throw anybody under the bus who ever disagrees with him about any aspect of anything.”

Trump is due in Cedar Rapids tomorrow to tape a program with Sean Hannity that will air on the Fox News Channel. It’s Trump’s first appearance here after complaining last week that Governor Kim Reynolds is maintaining neutrality in the 2024 presidential race, after he endorsed her in 2018. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said some of the Iowans he met this weekend were riled by Trump’s remarks about Reynolds.

“I think she’s been a model public servant,” DeSantis said this weekend, “and anybody who’s a Republican that’s trying to denigrate her I think is way off base on that.”

DeSantis has joined the list of candidates who say they’ll visit each of Iowa’s 99 counties before the Caucuses.