MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2025--
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, today announced the winners of its fourth annual Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Day – BJ’s Nevada BBQ, the Homeless Garden Project, and Perry’s Joint. The three heroes were honored in a special ceremony at Intuit Dome, hosted by WNBA League MVP and basketball legend Lisa Leslie. During the ceremony, the winners were acknowledged for going above and beyond to serve their customers, employees, and community, and awarded $20,000 each to help fuel their continued success.
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Perry Bennett of Perry's Joint in Pasadena, Calif., is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Jay Rathmann of BJ's Nevada BBQ is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Sparks, Nev. (Bridget Bennett/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Three small businesses were presented with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Lisa Leslie presents small business owners with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
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Building on the success of Small Business Hero Day over the last four years, Intuit also announced an expansion of the program into a year-long initiative called the Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Program. The program will assist even more small business heroes across the U.S. by spotlighting three winners each quarter who have made a positive impact in their community, while demonstrating courage, perseverance, and integrity. Each winner will receive a $20,000 grant and additional resources from QuickBooks and Mailchimp to help amplify their small business on a larger scale, and support their continued success and growth. Nominations for the inaugural Small Business Hero Program are now open for businesses located in the U.S. To submit a small business for consideration, go to intuit.com/heroprogram. 1
“The Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Program will help provide a greater support system for small businesses across the country and the communities they serve,” said Emma Rodgers, SVP, Marketing, Intuit. “These businesses fuel the economy and play a key role in our local communities, but running a small business is not easy. We’ve seen how impactful our $20,000 grants have been to the past recipients, and we’re excited to expand the program and triple the number of businesses who will receive grants and resources each year, as part of our mission to help small businesses thrive and achieve prosperity.”
New data from the 2025 Intuit Small Business Heroes Survey found that nine in 10 respondents (90%) say small businesses contribute to their sense of community. 2 This year’s Small Business Hero Day winners are a shining example of how local business leaders play a key role in building this sense of community. Each has impacted their respective communities in unique ways and plan to use the grant money to further their positive impact.
About Intuit
Intuit is the global financial technology platform that powers prosperity for the people and communities we serve. With approximately 100 million customers worldwide using products such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to prosper. We never stop working to find new, innovative ways to make that possible. Please visit us at Intuit.com and find us on social for the latest information about Intuit and our products and services.
1 NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Sponsored by Intuit. Legal residents of the 50 US (D.C.), 18+ can nominate Businesses that are located and operate in the 50 US (D.C.). Void where prohibited. Enter Contest by 5/15/26. Terms and Conditions Apply. See Official Rules for all business eligibility requirements, phase dates, and entry details, at https://quickbooks.intuit.com/offers/small-business-hero-program.
2 Methodology: In April 2025, Intuit QuickBooks commissioned an online survey of 4,000 US consumers age 18+. The survey focused on consumer sentiment towards small and local enterprises. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest decimal place, so values shown in data report charts and graphics may not add up to 100%. Responses were collected using Prodege audience pools and partner networks with double opt-ins and random device engagement sampling to ensure accurate targeting and results. Respondents received remuneration. Results are post-stratified against U.S. Census data.
Perry Bennett of Perry's Joint in Pasadena, Calif., is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Jay Rathmann of BJ's Nevada BBQ is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Sparks, Nev. (Bridget Bennett/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Three small businesses were presented with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Lisa Leslie presents small business owners with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
DALLAS (AP) — Sen. John Cornyn stood in the shadow of the U.S.-Mexico border wall for a campaign event, but the Texas Republican didn’t offer the kind of diatribe about illegal immigration that stokes his party’s core and fueled Donald Trump’s rise to the White House.
Instead, Cornyn, in his courtly Houston drawl, politely thanked Trump for billions in federal dollars to reimburse Texans for work on the wall, praising “the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”
Cornyn's characteristic calm and measured comments betrayed the urgency of the moment for the four-term senator. He's facing the political fight of his long career against two Republicans who claim closer ties to Trump and his MAGA movement and tend more toward fiery rhetoric. Now, Cornyn could become the first Republican Texas senator to lose renomination in a race that may reflect what GOP primary voters are looking for in their elected officials — and what it takes to survive in Trump’s Republican Party.
Some say the 73-year-old former Texas Supreme Court justice represents a bygone era in the GOP. Still, Cornyn, supporters and the Senate’s Republican leadership are fighting aggressively for an edge in the March 3 primary. They have spent tens of millions of dollars, much of it against his opponents, Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton and Rep. Wesley Hunt — both self-styled Trump Republicans.
“We’ve got enough performance artists here in Washington,” Cornyn told The Associated Press, “people who think serving as a representative in the world’s most distinguished representative body — that what qualifies them — is they are loud, they are active on social media and they get a lot of attention.”
Paxton entered the race in April, having emerged from legal troubles that had shadowed his political rise, including beating a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption charges and reaching a deal to end a long-running securities fraud case.
The three-term attorney general has portrayed the investigations against him as persecution by the political establishment, much like Trump has. He contends Cornyn has “completely lost touch with Texas.”
Hunt is still working to raise his profile in Texas. The two-term House member often touts his early endorsement of Trump's 2024 comeback campaign.
Of Cornyn, Hunt recently said, “His moment has passed.”
Hunt's entry in the race last fall made it more likely that no candidate will win at least 50% of the primary vote, sending the top two finishers to a May runoff. The nominee would face the winner of the Democratic primary between Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico.
Mike Fleming, an 80-year-old retired sales manager who attended a recent Hunt campaign event, said Cornyn is a good man but has spent “a lot of his time trying to run for head of the Senate.” Cornyn unsuccessfully ran for Senate majority leader after the 2024 elections.
“If he was the only guy, I would vote for him,” Fleming said.
Cornyn and aligned super PACs have heavily outspent Paxton and Hunt, investing more than $30 million since last summer on television advertising, much of it criticizing his rivals, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact.
Senate Republican leaders, however, have worried that Paxton, as the nominee, would be costly to defend in the general election. Cornyn's situation is more about a shift in Republican campaign priorities and what candidates need to do to win a GOP primary.
“He plays the part of the distinguished statesman. And that’s what he’s always been,” said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party. “But anymore, you have to be very loud about the opposition. And that’s just not him.”
Cornyn also fights a perception among some GOP voters that he’s a moderate.
“He hasn’t been consistent in his conservative representation in his voting,” said Robyn Richardson, 50, from suburban Dallas.
Some Texas conservatives remain angry about Cornyn's work as the GOP’s negotiator on gun restrictions in a 2022 law in the weeks after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. Democrats narrowly controlled Congress and hoped to enact major changes under President Joe Biden.
The measure didn't go as far as Democrats wanted, but the bipartisan bill was the widest-ranging gun measure passed by Congress in decades. Some Republicans wanted any bill blocked, and a week before its passage, some GOP activists booed Cornyn as he took the stage at a state convention.
Some point to Cornyn being dismissive of Trump during his 2016 campaign and before his 2024 campaign and to his dismissal of Trump's claims of widespread election fraud after he lost to Biden in 2020. Those claims by Trump were debunked.
Cornyn was even skeptical early on about the border wall he took credit for helping finance, calling Trump “naive” in proposing it before he sealed the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Paxton has pointed to that comment, portraying Cornyn as “opposing the border wall.”
The episodes certainly weren't helpful for Cornyn, who has worked to show Texas Republicans where he and Trump agree.
Cornyn aired ads featuring him with Border Patrol agents along the wall, promoting his support to secure $11 billion for Texans' work on it. Another ad promoted Cornyn's 99% support for Trump's agenda, including his three U.S. Supreme Court nominees.
But the disagreements are small compared with the broader shift Cornyn has resisted.
Vinny Minchillo, a veteran Republican consultant in the Dallas area, referred to Cornyn as “an old George W. Bush Republican, which is now a bad thing” since Trump’s rise.
Cornyn was elected attorney general in 1998, winning when a new national conservative figure was rising out of Texas, the newly reelected Gov. George W. Bush, who was elected president two years later.
The Bush name, once a three-generation fixture in Texas politics, quietly disappeared when then-Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, grandson and nephew of two presidents, lost his challenge of Paxton for attorney general in 2022.
“I think there is certainly some level of John Cornyn fatigue,” Minchillo said. “He’s been on the ballot in Texas for a long, long time.”
As of last week, Trump had endorsed dozens of Republican lawmakers in Texas. But he is not expected to endorse ahead of the Senate primary, according to people familiar with the White House thinking but who were not authorized to speak publicly.
That would leave Cornyn among only three incumbent Republican senators seeking reelection who have not received Trump's public backing, with Maine's Susan Collins and Louisiana's Bill Cassidy.
Cornyn acknowledged he's “not somebody who cries out for attention at every opportunity.”
Instead, in the final weeks of the primary campaign, he's hoping voters consider which candidate would be the most effective at getting things done — because he believes they'll support him if they do.
“Sometimes people make the distinction between a workhorse and a show horse,” he said. “And I’m happy to be a workhorse.”
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan. Maya Sweedler contributed from Washington.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, walks through the Capitol, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
FILE - Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduces Brooke Rollins during a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee hearing on her nomination for Secretary of Agriculture, Jan. 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
