Parties in federal states compete simultaneously on all levels of governance. But how does competition and cooperation at these different levels impact dynamics between parties on other levels? The literature on coalitions and party competition has focused on the dynamics between parties in single parliaments. Here, we extend this literature to multi-level settings. We argue that national coalitions, their internal dynamics as well as the national electoral cycle impact interactions between parliamentary parties at the state level. The analysis is based on a dataset of parliamentary debates covering almost 30 years of state-level and national debates in German parliaments. Using applause as a measure of support, we show that parties in national government are more supportive of each other in state parliaments, but less so than they are at the national level. We also find that mutual support in national parliament is strongly correlated with support in state parliaments. These results highlight multi-level interactions as an important and hitherto under-explored element of inter-party relations. National-level dynamics spillover into state politics, but state-level legislative dynamics still remain somewhat distinct.