U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being taken to task by her opponent in the Democratic primary for refusing to debate her after the congresswoman blasted the leadership of the Democratic National Committee last year for limiting the number of debates in the presidential primary.

Political newcomer and Maui resident Shay Chan Hodges challenged Gabbard to at least four debates on all the major islands. She said Gabbard didn’t respond to her request.

Erika Tsuji, a spokeswoman for Gabbard, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by email Tuesday that “the campaign does not plan to comment on or respond to Ms. Chan-Hodges’ demands.”

The Star-Advertiser asked Gabbard to explain how her views on presidential primary debates differ from debates in her own race, but didn’t receive a response.

Gabbard is highly popular in Hawaii, scoring a 75 percent favorability rating in a January Star-Advertiser poll — that’s about 20 percentage points higher than the other three members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation.

IT’S NOT unusual for a popular incumbent, who is expected to easily win re-election, to decline debate requests. In Gabbard’s case the debates would likely benefit Hodges, who lacks statewide name recognition, more than her. But the congresswoman’s high-profile skirmish with the DNC has created an opportunity for Hodges to capitalize on as she tries to force Gabbard to defend and openly debate her political record.

Gabbard made national headlines last year after she criticized Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for scheduling only six debates in the Democratic presidential primary. The limited number of debates was widely seen as benefiting Hillary Clinton over her lesser-known political rivals, including Bernie Sanders.

“As you know, I have been pretty vocal about calling out for more debates,” Gabbard told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in October. “I have been calling for more debates to give the American people the opportunity to hear from these presidential candidates, to listen to what they’ve got to say, to hold them accountable for their views and their positions.”

Gabbard said the issue was one of “democracy, of freedom of speech and defending that which so many have sacrificed and given their lives for.”

The Hawaii congresswoman said that Wasserman Schultz subsequently disinvited her from an upcoming Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas, a claim Wasserman Schultz denied.

Gabbard, who at the time was a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, later resigned in February so that she could endorse and campaign for Sanders.

Hodges said she was “disappointed” that Gabbard won’t participate in any primary debates.

“I agree with Rep. Gabbard that conducting debates during a primary is critically important. And I agree with her view that this provides citizens with ‘greater engagement in our democratic process,’” she said in a statement, referencing Gabbard’s own words. “That is why I urge Rep. Gabbard to remember the arguments she made for additional debates on Fox News and other media outlets and apply them to her own election.”

While Gabbard has declined to debate Hodges, she did send out an email to campaign supporters Monday asking for political donations that seemed to include a thinly veiled attack on Hodges.

Gabbard wrote that her decision to challenge the leadership of the Democratic Party had “put a target on my back.”

“I’m facing multiple opponents in my re-election campaign who are smearing my record to score political points,” Gabbard wrote.

Hodges said that Gabbard’s assertion was “ironic,” given that her challenge to the Democratic Party’s leadership involved criticizing Wasserman Schultz for restricting presidential primary debates.

Hodges, a writer, is Gabbard’s only Democratic primary opponent. Also running for the 2nd Congressional District seat, which includes rural Oahu and the neighbor islands, are two Republican contenders and a nonpartisan candidate, none of whom are expected to pose a serious challenge to Gabbard’s race.