Twice Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert Caro has spent a career analyzing political power—how it works and who holds it. Across five bestselling books, he has chronicled two towering American power brokers: Robert Moses, the New York city planner who reshaped urban infrastructure, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who rose from poverty in rural Texas to become President of the United States. Johnson’s Great Society stands as his defining legislative achievement. Yet Caro has long insisted that he is less interested in biography than in power itself—how it is accumulated, exercised, and sustained.

The just-completed midterm elections in California suggest that political power in Los Angeles may no longer reside in singular, dominant figures. An unpopular incumbent mayor and a relatively unknown City Council member—who did not even carry her own district—advanced to a runoff over a charismatic newcomer who appeared to channel widespread voter dissatisfaction. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County property tax increase passed without a prominent public champion. These outcomes raise a fundamental question: if no individual commands a clear popular mandate, who—or what—is the true power broker in Los Angeles?

The answer may lie not in individuals, but in a method: the ground game.

“Ground game” refers to the organized, person-to-person effort to mobilize voters—through door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, text messaging, and targeted turnout strategies. In an electoral environment shaped less by mass persuasion and more by participation, the ability to identify, reach, and turn out reliable voters has become a decisive form of political power.

California’s election system has amplified the importance of such efforts. First, the state automatically mails ballots to all registered voters, making participation more accessible but also shifting the burden of persuasion to ensuring ballots are actually completed and returned. Second, California maintains comparatively permissive rules regarding voter registration list maintenance, which critics argue can result in outdated rolls and ballots being sent to individuals who have moved or died. Third, the state permits third-party ballot collection—often referred to as “ballot harvesting”—allowing organized groups to gather and submit completed ballots on behalf of voters. Fourth, extended timelines for ballot receipt and counting mean that elections are effectively prolonged, giving organized campaigns additional time to identify and cure ballot deficiencies or mobilize late voters. Finally, California does not require voter identification at the polls in most cases, lowering procedural barriers to participation.

Taken together, these policies create an electoral landscape in which persuasion through media or personality is less determinative than the capacity to execute a disciplined, persistent ground operation. Elections are no longer won solely on Election Day; they are accumulated over weeks through systematic voter contact.

No organization in Los Angeles better illustrates this shift than the Democratic Socialists of America–Los Angeles (DSA-LA). Despite having only a few thousand members, DSA-LA has emerged as a disproportionately influential political force in local elections. Its success is not rooted in financial dominance or celebrity candidates, but in its ability to deploy a highly coordinated ground game—volunteers conducting door-to-door outreach, organizing tenant networks, and maintaining sustained engagement with targeted voter blocs.

A key to this effectiveness has been the organization’s focus on renters’ rights. In a city where a majority of residents are renters, housing policy provides a direct, personal point of contact between political advocacy and everyday life. By organizing tenants around issues such as rent control, eviction protections, and housing affordability, DSA-LA has been able to build durable, localized networks of politically engaged individuals. These networks are not merely ideological—they are functional, serving as ready-made channels for voter mobilization during elections.

This strategy transforms policy advocacy into electoral infrastructure. A tenant meeting becomes a canvassing hub; a renters’ rights campaign becomes a voter turnout operation. In this way, the ground game is not an auxiliary campaign tactic but the central mechanism through which political power is constructed and exercised.

Robert Caro’s work suggests that power ultimately resides where decisions are made and outcomes are determined. In contemporary Los Angeles, those outcomes increasingly hinge on who can mobilize voters most effectively within the rules of California’s electoral system. The new power broker is not a single figure commanding headlines, but a decentralized, disciplined network capable of turning engagement into ballots—and ballots into victory.

Footnotes

California Secretary of State, “Vote-by-Mail Voting,” State of California, https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/vote-mail (accessed June 2026).

U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Election Administration and Voting Survey, and California State Auditor reports on voter roll maintenance practices; see also Judicial Watch, Inc. v. California settlement records (2019).

California Elections Code §3017, permitting any person to return a vote-by-mail ballot on behalf of a voter.

California Secretary of State, “California Election Results Process,” detailing ballot receipt deadlines and post-election processing timelines.

National Conference of State Legislatures, “Voter Identification Requirements,” noting California does not generally require voter ID for in-person voting except in limited first-time voter cases.

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Los Angeles housing tenure data indicating a renter-majority population.

Written by Wesley V. Wellman

Wesley V. Wellman has been active in the financial services field for more than 40 years. His brokerage firm, Wellman Realty Company, specializes in multi-family and commercial investment property. Since the year 2000, Mr. Wellman has sold over $342 million of investment property. He is a Santa Monica apartment industry leader and is frequently quoted in the local press about rental property issues. He is one of the founding directors of the Action Apartment Association, which was formed in 1980. As an advisor, Mr. Wellman draws on a wealth of educational background in real estate, taxation, securities and estate planning.