Winning a parliamentary seat for the first time marks a crucial milestone for any new party. However, many such parties fade away quickly, and only a few can survive and retain their seats at re-election. Why do some new parties survive their first re-election, while others fail? The emergence of multilevel electoral systems has fundamentally reshaped the European party landscape. These systems, with their multiple access points, create new strategic opportunities and challenges for emerging parties. I argue that how new party strategically navigate electoral competition following its initial breakthrough shapes their fortunes at re-election —specifically, its short-term survival. A new party’s decision to contest elections at a different level between its initial success and the subsequent election at the original level –a timeframe termed here as the opportunity window— presents both opportunities and risks to its short-term survival. Engaging in elections at a different level during this opportunity window can enhance a new party’s prospects for re-election if successful. Conversely, failure in these elections can diminish those prospects compared to abstaining altogether. Empirical analysis using a novel dataset that records 210 new party trajectories during the opportunity window in 13 European countries between 2004 and 2023 supports the arguments.