This article analyzes the impact of the behavior of incumbent MEPs as regards their level of involvement in the work of the European Parliament on their election results. The objective is to enrich the second-order model of European elections with one additional factor that is directly connected to the European level. Based on data from the 2004 and 2009 elections, the paper demonstrates that the activities of incumbent lawmakers partially predict their chances of re-election. To this end, it integrates two alternative hypotheses relating to partisan loyalty and national political experience, showing notably that not all activities are equally influential. Thus it opens the way to a theory of elections as the retrospective evaluation of the incumbent?s individual record.