Virginia policy group hits McAuliffe on his plan to urbanize the suburbs, destroy single-family life

With election day for the Virginia governorship just weeks away, the neck-in-neck race between former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and former Carlyle co-CEO Glenn Youngkin (R) is heating up. In the final days of the race, Frontiers of Freedom, a conservative policy advocacy group in Virginia, has made a major TV ad-buy in the DC-Northern Virginia market with a long-form ad that emphasizes McAuliffe's plans to undermine suburban family neighborhoods by building high density housing.

According to Frontiers' ad, McAuliffe, as governor, would "override local zoning" ordinances in an effort to quickly build up "high-density, low-income housing" in single-family suburban communities. He would hand over significant neighborhood building and construction power to the federal government that would allow the bureaucratic destruction of the American suburbs to move forward.

Several prominent GOP politicians, including former HUD secretary Dr. Ben Carson, have spent the last couple years warning the public about this type of zoning practice and the negative impact it stands to have on American suburbs.

"Terry McAuliffe's threat to the suburbs is no exaggeration," says the ad, which runs at 120-seconds. It also points out that a majority of black and hispanic families are against disrupting the housing and traffic flow of American suburbs. For many decades families like theirs were kept out of single-family communities, and now they are hoping to thrive the way other families have in suburban areas, not have the opportunity taken from them by politically motivated zoning laws.

The president of the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation, George Landrith, says this is not an attack ad. Rather, he calls the spot a "heavily informative narrative ad that tells the story of Terry McAuliffe's extremist views and plans." 

In addition to the claim that McAuliffe will pass policy that will endanger the lifestyles of hardworking suburban Virginian families, the group hits the former governor for allying himself with those who support "teaching ugly Anti-American falsehoods to school children" – a reference to Critical Race Theory – defunding the police, and "continuing the illegal immigration crisis and influx of MS-13 gangs in Northern Virginia." 

Current polling shows that Youngkin and McAuliffe are virtually tied, meaning the next few weeks will be exceptionally important for both campaigns. While Youngkin has run a steady effort, amassing growing support through his primary bid and into the general election, McAuliffe's campaign has struggled the past few weeks, especially following a gaffe at a gubernatorial debate in late September during which the Democrat said "I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."

The role parents play in the education of their children has been an unusually significant issue during the Virginia race as parents across the state oppose and protest the decisions of their local school boards ranging from all-day masking mandates for their children, to the inclusion of Critical Race Theory in the curricula of young students.