ALEXANDRIA, Va. — With 170,000 federal employees in Virginia and 30 percent of the economy of Northern Virginia dependent on government spending, no state has more to lose from a government shutdown than this one.

And the first concrete gauge of the political fallout may play out here, where a governor’s race that had been dominated by the weakness of the two candidates now seems to be focused on the question of which party will take the blame.

With the election just 34 days away, the issue increasingly is raising risks for Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the Republican, who is worriedly trying to keep voters angry at Washington Republicans from taking it out on him.

Mr. Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, says he does not support a federal shutdown. He has tried to turn the tables on his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, by arguing that he would bring the same inflexibility to Richmond that produced the breakdown this week in Washington.