From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgo/come/be down to the wirego/come/be down to the wireinformal especially American EnglishTIME/HAVE TIME to be finished or achieved with very little time left The game was very close and went right down to the wire. → wire
Examples from the Corpus
go/come/be down to the wire• It is down to the wire.• We were in a couple of games that went right down to the wire.• In the event the starting line-up went down to the wire. 