Sure, if you have quality content.
If you're regurgitating rewritten crap, not a chance.
I've seen WordPress sites rank for relevant searches before (microniches), but they were passionate writers on the subject spanning back years. They provided not only quantity, but quality.
By that, I'm sure they got a lot of natural backlinking and it helped out with ranking.
Backlinks aren't the only technique to rank, any website.