While extensive evidence confirms that winning an election increases satisfaction with democracy (SWD), the evidence on the effect of entering parliament is scarce. This is surprising given the increasing impact of new parties in Western democracies. Not only are they more likely to irrupt parliament than ever before, but their voters also display lower levels of SWD and other indicators of democratic support. Do they become more supportive after their party breakthrough? This paper provides three complementary studies to answer this question. The first one leverages the quasi-as-random nature of seat assignment around legally fixed electoral thresholds to identify the effect of parliamentary entry on SWD. It exploits post-electoral survey data from the cumulative files of the CSES with administrative electoral records within a regression-discontinuity approach (RDD). The second study uses pre- and post-electoral waves from six European panels to compare changes in SWD among voters of new parties entering parliament barely above the threshold with those gaining a sizeable number of seats. While voters of minor new parties become more satisfied after the election, voters of major new parties do not. The third study exploits extensive panel data (n>8000) for an in-depth analysis of AfD voters during the 2017 German Federal election to provide insights into this seeming puzzle. This paper contributes to the extensive literature on the winner-loser gap in SWD. It also adds to the growing literature on party entry effects. Most importantly, it provides original insights on why party-system change might not foster democratic support.