This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Rick Henderson, Managing Editor of Carolina Journal.

RALEIGH — Tar Heel Democrats, meet Murphy’s Law. If you thought your situation was bad when the Republican-led General Assembly released its first set of congressional district maps July 1, Round Two is even worse.

Under the final maps issued Wednesday, what had been a modest Republican gerrymander may result in a decade of GOP dominance of our congressional delegation. And if the maps pass final muster with the General Assembly and survive challenges in court, Democrats should focus their ire at one of their own: Rep. G.K. Butterfield, the Wilson Democrat who has represented the 1st Congressional District since 2004.

Butterfield serves in one of the state’s two majority-black districts. Since the 2000 census, however, his northeastern district has lost nearly 100,000 residents; the population there and statewide has shifted from rural areas to urban and suburban neighborhoods. To keep the number of residents equal in every congressional district, the boundaries had to be moved. And to satisfy the federal Voting Rights Act, the 1st District had to include enough black voters to ensure their rights were not “diluted.”

The congressman was unhappy with the first map provided by the legislature’s redistricting chairs — though Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, and Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, say he didn’t object when they met with him. The plan added voters in Wake County, far from Elizabeth City, the eastern edge of the district.

Butterfield wasn’t quiet about his disagreement. Rucho and Lewis responded with a new map that’ll take Butterfield into Durham County, on 4th District Rep. David Price’s home turf.

The new map will keep the 1st and 4th in Democratic hands — though Butterfield could face a primary challenge from any number of well-known Durham elected officials — but it’ll make life tougher for several Democratic colleagues.

Even though Democrats outnumber Republicans in statewide voter registration 44 percent to 32 percent (with 24 percent unaffiliated), most map-watchers said the July 1 plan would have flipped the state’s congressional delegation after the 2012 election — from the current 7-6 Democratic majority to a GOP lead of anywhere from 8-5 to 10-3.

The newest map boosts the prospects of a 10-3 GOP delegation. For one thing, under the latest version, Price and 13th District Rep. Brad Miller are “double-bunked.” They’ve been placed in the same district. So have incumbent Democrats Mike McIntyre (7th) and Larry Kissell (8th).

Double-bunked reps have several unsavory choices. They can choose to run against each other. One could seek re-election in his newly drawn and unfamiliar district — a district in which he doesn’t live. Or one could retire. Miller and McIntyre say they’ll pick Door No. 2.

Of the four double-bunked Dems, only Price looks like a safe bet to win another term. Mel Watt, of the state’s other majority-black district, the 12th, is a shoo-in for re-election as well. Butterfield’s district (even if he’s not the representative) should give the Democrats three solid seats.

Meantime, another Democrat, Heath Shuler of the 11th District, is also in peril. Why?

Because North Carolina has a significant number of unafilliated voters, and a fair number of conservative Democrats, the lawmakers in charge of redistricting added Democrats to safe Republican districts. (Those with short memories should know that Republicans had “safe” districts only because the previous Democrat-drawn redistricting plan from 2001 packed as many Republicans into the smallest number of districts as possible.) This year’s Republican mapmakers also gave Democratic incumbents more GOP (or at least more conservative-leaning) constituents than they did in the first set of maps.

You can see this shift by looking at voting patterns from the 2008 presidential election. Assuming McCain voters are more likely than Obama voters to elect Republicans to Congress, those figures serve as a proxy for political sentiment in the districts.

To compare for yourself, you can find the existing district map here. The July 1 plan is here. The latest map is here.

McIntyre’s current 7th District went 52-47 for McCain. The July 1 map made the margin 55-44. The July 20 map bumped that to 58-42 and gave McIntyre a lot of new turf to represent.

Meantime, Kissell’s 8th went from 52-47 Obama to 55-44 McCain July 1, and then 57-42 McCain in the latest version.

And Shuler’s 11th moved from a 59-41 Obama constituency to a group that supported McCain 58-41 on both July maps.

Finally, Brad Miller shifts from a district that went 59-40 for Obama to one that backed McCain 56-43 (on the July 1 map) and 54-45 on the most recent version. And he’ll be trying to represent a very different geographic constituency.

To be sure, with incumbency comes power. If Republicans nominate weak candidates, any or all of these gerrymandered Democrats could hold their seats. Still, it’s hard to see fewer than nine North Carolina Republicans taking the oath of office in January 2013.

But while Rucho and Lewis are taking heat — justifiably — for what seems like a petulant response to Butterfield’s public temper tantrum, the veteran congressman made a rookie mistake. He ignored a simple warning: Be careful what you ask for.