Kay Hagan has declined to participate in the only televised debate her campaign was considering, frustrating her chief rival for the party’s nomination.

The campaign of Jim Neal responded sharply, saying the state senator from Greensboro is trying to buy an election victory with television ads and is avoiding a discussion of the issues in the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, the Associated Press reports.

"Sen. Hagan's cynical and disingenuous refusal to debate flies in the face of her claim to be a candidate of change," said Neal spokesman Curtis Ellis.

The Democratic front-runners have only participated one debate, hosted by the League of Women Voters and Public Radio East late on a Friday night last month.

Hagan campaign officials said they didn’t want to attend the debate hosted by WTVD-TV because the station wasn’t going to extend an invitation to all five candidates. WTVD wanted to limit participation to candidates who had at least 10 percent support in a recent poll.

That would exclude longshot candidates Duskin Lassiter, Marcus Williams and Howard Staley.

"Using one poll as the indicator of who the voters should hear from in the Democratic primary, quite frankly, defeats the point of a primary," said Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan.