Loser Between Hillary & Donald to Say Goodbye to Secret Service

It's expensive as hell to protect presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ... which explains why the Secret Service drops the loser FAST ... but maybe not as fast as you think.

The federal government shells out about $40k PER DAY to protect Hillary -- code name "Evergreen" -- and Donald -- code name "Mogul." The cost of protecting candidates in 2012 reportedly approached $113 million.

There's no hard-and-fast rule on when the Secret Service stops protecting the loser. It's done on a case-by-case ... but typically, agents say sayonara to the loser about a week after the election. The asterisk in this case is Hillary -- as a former First Lady she gets lifetime protection, anyway.

But this wacky election season has been anything but typical ... and with rampant terrorist threats it's possible the detail sticks around a little longer.