Sarah Palin has spent most of this month out of state, campaigning with Senator McCain, and has endorsed neither Senator Stevens nor his opponent. But that has not stopped both candidates from trying to benefit from her enormous popularity in Alaska, which has only grown since she joined the McCain ticket.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the Federal District Court here rejected arguments by Mr. Stevens’s lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, that the senator needed to be in Alaska to campaign for re-election. Judge Sullivan suggested that he might conduct the trial in Washington from Monday to Thursday, to allow Senator Stevens to go back to Alaska on weekends to campaign.