Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain will return to the St. Louis area on July 15 for a fundraiser and a separate public event, a spokesman for state McCain chairman Jack Jackson said tonight.

The fundraiser will be at Hunter Farms, the estate of Hunter Engineering executive Stephen Brauer and his wife, Kimmy Brauer, that has been a popular GOP fundraising locale for more than a decade.

McCain also will hold a public event, Jackson spokesman Paul Brown said, although the particulars appeared to be still in the planning stage.

McCain was last in the St. Louis area in March for an evening fundraiser in Frontenac, followed by an early morning speech/town hall the next day at Savvis Inc., an information technology company in West County.

However, he was last in the state just three weeks ago, when he held a town hall in Springfield, Mo., the epicenter of Republican politics in this state.

Since then, McCain also has been spending a sizable amount on TV advertising in the state. In fact, he has been outspending his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, who also is targeting Missouri.

For a couple weeks, McCain outspent Obama by about two to one.

During the past week, McCain’s edge was a bit less — about $208,000 (for 673 spots) compared to Obama’s $192,000 (529 spots), according to Campaign Media Analysis Group, also known as CMAG, a non-partisan ad-monitoring firm that is tracking ad spending for the Post-Dispatch.

Both men ran ads in all of the state’s major markets, including St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, Joplin and Columbia, CMAG’s latest report said.