Despite being the largest recipient of EU structural funds between 2014 and 2020, Poland has witnessed a marked rise in populist sentiment and political rhetoric challenging supranational governance. This paradox raises critical questions about the political consequences of economic integration. While cohesion policy is designed to foster development and solidarity, its reception in populist strongholds suggests a more fragmented and ambivalent relationship between material support and political allegiance. This paper investigates how exposure to EU-funded projects influences public trust in institutions and satisfaction with governance, both at the national and EU levels. By integrating individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) with regional-level funding data from the European Commission’s DG REGIO, the analysis explores whether structural spending mitigates or reinforces populist narratives. The findings contribute to broader debates on the limits of technocratic legitimacy, the drivers of populist mobilization, and the resilience of anti-elite discourse in the face of economic benefit.