North Carolina Republicans approved a new congressional map Friday that would cost the party at least two House seats and potentially roil the state's delegation — but Democrats immediately objected, saying it's still a GOP gerrymander.

Republicans represent 10 of the state's 13 districts and would be very likely to lose two seats: those held by Republican Reps. George Holding and Mark Walker. Democrats, though, argue the new map doesn't go far enough and quickly challenged it in state court.

“The congressional map passed by Republicans in the North Carolina legislature simply replaces one partisan gerrymander with a new one," said former Attorney General Eric Holder, who leads the National Redistricting Foundation, which backed the lawsuit. "This new map fails to respond to the court’s order by continuing to split communities of interest, packing voters in urban areas and manipulating the district lines to provide Republicans with an unfair partisan advantage."

Democratic-linked plaintiffs who challenged the initial map filed a brief last Friday contesting the redraw, a move that could delay primaries for Congress and continue to muddle the state's political future with a year to go until the 2020 elections.

Republicans, meanwhile, are already confronting significant upheaval in their delegation — even if Democrats don't succeed in convincing the court to go further to unravel the GOP's advantage. Holding is hinting about retirement. And Walker, who was also drawn into a safe, Democratic district, is raising the prospect of primarying a fellow member.

"We basically have a Wild West of redistricting," GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, who holds a district in the western half of the state, said this week. "This will be the fourth map in six cycles, and I think that is so confusing for voters."

Last month, a three-judge panel appeared poised to strike down the old map, prompting the GOP-controlled state Legislature to act first in the hopes of minimizing losses to the party's congressional delegation.

Under the GOP’s redraw, Holding’s district now includes more of Wake County, taking in the city of Raleigh. Walker’s new seat unites Greensboro and Winston-Salem — and an insurmountable number of Democratic voters.

Holding has repeatedly suggested that he would retire if there was no suitable district in which he could run.

“I never came here to make a career out of being in Congress. There are plenty of other things to do,” he said this week, repeatedly adding: “No one is entitled to a congressional seat.”

But Walker, a Baptist pastor first elected in 2014 who briefly considered running for Senate earlier this year, said he was not resigned to an early departure and floated the possibility he could run in one of two neighboring districts with new lines that include parts of his original 6th District.

"Not to overspiritualize it, but we’re kind of praying through the process, my family and I," he said Friday. "They have taken the bulk of my district and put the constituents in two other districts, so we’re kind of looking at all these options."

The primary is set for March 3, known as "Super Tuesday," though the court could order special primaries at a later date if it rejects the new map. Walker declined to rule out challenging McHenry or Republican Rep. Ted Budd, whose redrawn districts absorbed some of his old seat.

"You know, I don’t even like to think about that," Walker said. "But, I mean, you want to do what’s right, ethically. But if you have the bulk of the people that you represent, have just been — a line’s been moved over — I mean, is that something you take a look at?"

The reconfigured map would likely elect eight Republicans and five Democrats, but a few seats have the potential to be competitive, according to a POLITICO analysis. President Donald Trump received less than 55 percent of the vote in seats corresponding to those held by Republican Reps. Richard Hudson and Dan Bishop. Hillary Clinton got 54 percent of the vote in the district held now by Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield.

Hudson’s new district takes in Fayetteville, making it more favorable to Democrats. “It is what it is. I can’t control it,” he said Thursday.

Bishop, who was just elected in a September special election, avoided grabbing a larger slice of Mecklenburg County, which includes the city of Charlotte. But he could still have a somewhat challenging reelection. Trump would have carried the seat by 10 points, down slightly from 12 points under the lines in this year's special election.

Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Mark Meadows took in all of the liberal enclave of Asheville but said he was not worried. “It’s still a conservative district," Meadows said. "If you’ll look at the previous elections, I could still take all of Asheville and win by double digits."

Copies of the new map began circulating Thursday shortly before Congress convened for an afternoon vote. Butterfield came to the House chamber armed with printed-out copies.

He insisted he would win his new district comfortably, even though it no longer includes the city of Durham. And as a former state Supreme Court justice, he suggested the map still gave Republicans an unfair advantage.

"We need a 6-7 map, or a 7-6 map, or a 6-6-1 map. Those would be fair maps," he said. “This appears, on the face of it, to be a 5-8 map, which doesn’t quite get us where we need to go."

A Democratic challenge of the map could prompt the judges to appoint a special master to craft a new one. An obvious choice would be Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor who has overseen past court-mandated redraws in the state and is the author of a handful of congressional maps in use throughout the country.

The DCCC is in talks with prospective candidates in districts that may become more favorable under a new map. Holding already has a few challengers running against him, but the party will likely need to recruit in others.

Whatever map is adopted will be in place only for the 2020 elections. North Carolina legislators will redraw it again after the 2020 census, and the state is slated to gain at least one congressional seat in the next decade.

State legislators are used to constantly reconfiguring their political maps.

Federal judges scrapped the initial map in 2016, deeming it an illegal racial gerrymander. The delegation was forced to run in new districts in a rescheduled congressional primary, where Holding beat then-GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers in a member-versus-member race.

In interviews Thursday, several North Carolina Republicans said they would wait to reserve judgment on the map until it was finalized, but they seemed to be discussing it privately among themselves in the House chamber as they took votes.

Walker talked separately with NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer (Minn.), and with Budd and Meadows. McHenry, Hudson and Rep. David Rouzer also convened in a back corner.

As they left the chamber, Hudson denied they had been discussing a specific redistricting map.

“Might have been talking about the Panthers,” he joked before hopping on the Capitol subway.

Tucker Doherty and Zach Montellaro contributed to this report.