This study examines the intra-party mechanism that links right-wing populist parties' electoral performance in European elections and their persistence on the national political stage. Nationally marginalized right-wing populist parties have benefited from the second-order character of European elections since the introduction of the direct election in 1979. However, not every right-wing populist party has been able to turn its European victory into a national success. The most similar system comparison of right-wing populist parties in France and the UK shows that only parties that have strategically utilized the resources provided by the European Parliament have persisted in the national political arena.